I’m not a breakfast person, usually because I’m always up before I’m really hungry, and before I know it, it’s close enough to Lunch time. Weekends, however, is a different story. If I don’t have to go up to go anywhere in the morning, I always feel like making something. I wanted to make traditional pancakes this Saturday morning, but I didn’t have ricotta cheese and the buttermilk had expired. I looked in the fridge and all I had was milk, and some leftover strawberry and blackberries. Luckily, I was able to find a recipe for a mixed-berry Dutch baby pancake from Foodandwine.com that required just those items, and flour and sugar, which are kitchen staples for me.

A Dutch baby is a German pancake that is baked instead of cooked on the stove top. It worked out really well because the pancake takes about 20 minutes to cook in the oven, and I was able to work on the rest of the breakfast during those 20 minutes.

The cooking process is fairly simple: eggs, sugar, flour and milk are whisked together until smooth, and berries are added to the mixture. The recipe called for raspberries, but I just used what I had on hand. I think any berry or stone fruit combination should work.

An oven proof pan is heated over medium low heat on the stove top, just hot enough to melt a couple of tablespoons of butter. Once the butter melts completely, the heat is turned off, and the batter is poured into the pan. You want to evenly spread out the fruits, and keep the fruits away from the edges, so that all sides of the pancake will puff up. I had some fruits near the edge of my pancake and my pancake didn’t puff up completely on all sides.

The pan is placed into a 425F oven for 20 to 22 minutes, until the pancake is all puffy and browned on the edges, and slightly puffed in the center. You want the brown edges because they are actually crispy, and it’s a good contrast of texture against the rest of the soft pancake. Some powdered sugar can be dusted on top of the pancake if you’d like, and it’s ready to serve!

I finished up the breakfast by frying up some bacon, and cooked some eggs and fresh tomatoes in the left over hot bacon fat.

My boyfriend likes the eggs over easy, and the fried tomato idea I got from our travels through Ireland, where a full Irish breakfast would always be served with fried tomatoes.